Although the mass of the working class suffered increasing hardship under the Labour Government, black and Asian workers experienced even greater oppression. Labour enforced the 1971 Immigration Act despite its earlier declarations of opposition. This Act essentially introduced a work permit system: there were to be no more immigrants, only ‘guest workers’. As a corollary, there would be no secondary immigration associated with such migrant workers and the regime for such secondary immigration of dependants of black and Asian workers already settled in Britain as did take place was made brutally oppressive. The Act also greatly increased powers of deportation, to the extent that on average there were over 200 black people awaiting deportation each day. The Act facilitated the use of X-ray examinations to disprove children’s age claims and the use of virginity testing. In 1977 it was tightened even further when a 12-month probation period was put on the marriages of immigrant husbands after extensive publicity about alleged ‘marriages of convenience’.

This was not the end of its attacks on the black section of the working class. The Labour Government used thousands of police to defeat the Grunwicks strike of Asian women in 1976, and sanctioned a police attack on the Notting Hill Carnival in the same year. It tolerated the ever-extending use by the police of the 1824 Vagrancy Act — the ‘sus’ law — which enabled them to constantly harass black youth. Asylum seekers were not exempt from Labour's attentions: Cypriots fleeing the 1974-75 civil war were denied entry, as were Rhodesian draft-dodgers in 1976-77. The Prevention of Terrorism Act was introduced in December 1974 as an act of intimidation against the Irish community.

— Labour by Robert Clough (Counterattack, #2)